I’m obviously a bit tied up in all things bunny right now, so I thought I’d answer some of the questions from yesterday’s post.

Stacey asked:

will she get much bigger?

Umm… you could say that! Somewhere between 6 and 12 pounds is average. Stitches’ Mommy was a fairly good sized bunny, so I’m expecting about 10 pounds. Pictures really don’t do these animals justice. I’ll try to remember to include items that will help you see scale when I take pictures of her from time to time.

Ceci asked:

Your bunny is beautiful – Do I forsee spinning her hair into something?

Thank you and yes, that is exactly what will happen! Stitches will get her first haircut in May, sometime after MDS&W. I’ll be able to spin her wool after I shear her. German angoras don’t shed their wool, you have to cut it off, same as a sheep only with scissors instead of clippers. Some angoras do shed and if you go to a fiber festival you may see someone with a bunny in their lap, plucking it’s wool and spinning it right then and there. In fact, you can see an example of that in this episode of Let’s Knit Together. As a new bunny mama it may take me a couple of sessions to get her sheared the first time out, but I’m excited about spinning from her first haircut. It may end up just being a keepsake skein since I’ve never spun 100% angora before (kind of like bronzing your kid’s first shoes), but there will be plenty of clippings after that first one. In fact, I’m planning on picking up a cormo fleece in Maryland (my first fleece!) to blend with a future clip.

Dee asked:

How do you stand so much cuteness in one bundle????

Taken by her Daddy while I was at work. I was very anxious to get home for some reason!

It ain’t easy, but I’ll take it!

Kim asked:

Are her feet yellow?

Well, sort of. Bunnies don’t come with yellow feet, but they are sometimes silly enough to sit in their own wet spots, so they get a little dirty. And on all that white wool, it shows.

Marlena was nice enough to be concerned about Stitches living environment and wrote:

I hope this isn’t annoying, but I just wanted to let you know that you should put something down over the grate in her cage. Bunnies can get sores on their feet from walking on wire. I put cardboard down in one of my rabbits’ pens, which he loved to dig at and chew. Which reminds me, he doesn’t have a pen anymore, so I really need to find something for him to chew on besides the walls!

Not annoying at all! I’m a new bunny mama and don’t mind any words of kind advice. And I certainly don’t mind another animal lover showing concern. What I can tell everyone though is that we’ve already got that covered. It’s hard to see with all the hay in there but if you look at this picture:

you can see on the left and toward the front that we have a couple of plastic mats in there. They are specifically for the purpose that Marlena describes. They give Stitches a place to get a little break from the wire when she needs it while still letting her droppings fall through to the collection pan below. We’ve got two in there now which is plenty for her current size, but we may need to invest in a couple more so they can be swapped out for cleaning and/or she gets too big for them!

Finally, Cookie asked:

Are the kitty and bunny getting along okay?

Pretty well so far. HWJF and I have had Stitches out of her cage at different times in the last day for some closely supervised play and run about and Simba has been right there watching. Stitches seems to be pretty fearless when checking out her surroundings and hopped right up to Simba several times for a good sniff. Simba was not exactly amused and gave Stitches a little bit of a swat, but since she’s declawed in the front I’m not really worried about that. Besides, they both need to set boundaries with each other for what is ok and what is not. What *isn’t* great though is that sometimes Stitches will really start moving and then Simba’s pouncing instincts kick in (I would try to get pictures, but I’m far too busy playing sheriff!). That’s when I’ve had to intervene and Simba was none too happy about it. It’s going to take time, but Simba will learn that Stitches is NOT the best kitty toy ever, she’s a new family member. That’s going to take time, patients and a whole lot of feeling like I’m playing goalie in a really weird hockey game!!

Related posts:

1. Meet the newest member of our family!

Tags: Bunnies!, cats, pets

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 9th, 2008 at 6:30 am and is filed under Bunnies!. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.